Dragonoak (47 page)

Mind
hearing my pleas, for once, there was nothing but darkness behind
my eyelids as I slept. I tossed and turned, convinced I was back in
Canth; the heat rose more than the blankets ought to have allowed,
and I rolled onto my front, grumbling into a pillow. Sen tended to
sleep later and rise earlier than I did, and while she'd always
done her best not to disturb me, the corridor was alive with
sound.

Something cracked, a puff of a roar eating up the
air.

Light
reached me, though my eyes were still closed, and when Sen called
out, “Rowan!” I had already breathed in a lungful of smoke. I
scrambled back on the sofa, startled by the ripple of flames
spreading from the door frame. Sen kicked the door clean off its
hinges, fire blazing behind her, making short work of the
walls.

CHAPTER XVII

We made
it out while the cabin was still standing, shutters splintering
against Sen's shoulder as she gathered me in her arms and fought
her way out. Smoke coiled in my lungs and I coughed out phlegm,
clinging to Sen's arm like an avalanche in motion. She wanted
water, cared nothing for what she'd inhaled, and I scrambled after
her, ripping out what rattled within her.

The
cabin blazed within, flames filling the windows like all the
burning, hate-filled eyes that had been turned towards me over the
past few days. Smoke seeped out between logs, so thick and heavy it
ought to have spilt across the ground, and the neighbouring pane
hadn't wasted any time at the first sign of trouble.

They
came with buckets and pitchers, anything they could find, causing
the fire to do little more than hiss. The supports creaked and
twisted with the heat, tumbling in on themselves and taking the
roof along with them. The cabins had been built with space in
between them, but if the wind chose to pick up on a whim, the
flames would spread beyond our control, eating the city of a felled
forest within minutes.

“Don't
just stand there!” I called out. The humans still awake hadn't
missed the flames rising in the distance, and as the pane rushed
between the crumbling cabin and the wells, onlookers gathered to
gasp and clutch at each other's arms. “At least get out of the
way!”

I threw
myself against the crowd, forcing them to part, and my vision
flashed between the flames and the dark. Some of the pane were
throwing all the pans and buckets they owned from their windows,
but barely enough people were rushing forward to help. I made a
grab for one, but couldn't put myself to use.

“Sen!” I
called out. “Sen, where are you?”

I caught
a glimpse of her long red hair, vanishing around the side of the
burning cabin.

“Sen!
”

I
charged off after her, bucket thumping against the ground behind
me. The fire turned the air around it against me, scorching my skin
though I'd yet to touch a flame, and I called out her name over and
over, hearing the birds squawk in the garden. I turned the corner
and found her kneeling, cloth covering her mouth, fumbling with the
front of a chicken coop.

“Sen!
You've got to go, it's about to come down,” I yelled over the roar
of the flames, the pathetic hiss of water.

“My
birds...” she choked, gathering them in her arms, losing two for
every one she picked up.

I
grabbed her shoulder, unable to move a pane even with all the
back-breaking work I'd done in Canth, and said, “Go, go! I'll get
as many of them as I can. I can do it.”

“R-Rowan—”

“Rip it out of the ground and
run
!”

Without taking her eyes off me, Sen wrapped an arm around the
coup, and tore the struts clean out of the dirt. I didn't know what
I was doing, why I'd offered myself up to the pyre her house had
become, but it was my fault. No one was trying to hurt Sen. No one
could ever want to hurt
Sen.
It was me they were after, and I had to fix
this.

Had I
not been a necromancer, I don't know what would've happened to me.
I forced the ravens' cages open, steel bars hot to the touch, and
pulled the young birds into my arms, frightening them as much as
the fire did. The front wall came down with terrible thud, flames
letting out a hungry gasp, and though I wasn't in the building,
wasn't beneath the fallen walls, tears dried in my eyes as quickly
as they formed.

I pulled
out the front of my shirt to cradle the ravens and ran, healing the
birds as I went, tearing smoke from my lungs like a length of old,
sodden hair that had twisted all the way down my throat and deeper
still.

The
ground scraped the skin from my knees as I collapsed by Sen, making
sure she was alright over and over. It occurred to the humans who'd
come to gawk at the spectacle that if the fire spread to the pane
district, it wouldn't take long for it to reach their own homes,
and all gathered did what they could to fight the fire back,
spurred on by concern for their families.

Keeping
the birds close, Sen and I watched as the flames conceded to a
death by drowning, having taken what they'd come for. There was
nothing but a pile of charred wood left, smouldering with sated
hunger.

“We have
to go to Claire. We have to tell her what's happened,” I said,
shaking Sen's arm and failing to tear her eyes from the wreckage.
“... someone did this because of me. I'm so sorry, Sen. Please.
Let's go to Claire. She'll know what to do.”

Trembling, Sen rested her forehead atop the chicken coop
still in her arms, and I thought better of reaching out to her when
a growl rumbled in the back of her throat in time with the jagged
breaths she was taking.

With the
fire gone, all eyes were on us.

“You
saved them. You saved all of your birds, Sen. See, they're safe!
Can you leave them with one of your neighbours? It won't be for
long. We just really, really need to see Claire. Come on—we don't
need all these people staring at us,” I said softly.

Unable
to help but overhear, one of the pane came over and knelt in front
of Sen. They held their hands out slowly, murmuring something about
having always taken care of the birds, back in their tribe, and
uneasily, Sen passed the coop over.

I rose
to my feet, shirt still held out to carry the ravens. Sen glanced
up, not seeing anything until her eyes finally focused on the scars
scattered across my stomach. That was enough to make her move. She
took half of the birds in her cupped palms and together, we
followed her neighbour to their cabin, setting the birds down in
the hallway.

I took
her hand, knowing she was in no state to recall where the tower
was. I'd taken the smoke from her lungs but it still masked her
eyes, covering her thoughts in something thicker than a starless
night sky. There were none awake in Orinhal who didn't know what
had happened, none who didn't blame me for what had just unfolded;
there wouldn't be any who counted me innocent, had I stood alone in
a room.

With the
threat of fire over, people turned to fearmongering of a new kind.
What had once been used against necromancers suddenly became one of
our tools, and the Orinhalians stepped back, as though I was about
to burst into flames, not light.

“Excuse me,” said the one woman who dared to block my path. I
came to a halt, burrowing the words out of her with my gaze, no
longer content to let people push me around simply because they
were scared. “My family and I – and a lot of our friends – we don't
think this is right. What's happening to you. You're a nice woman.
The Marshal likes you well enough, and even if she didn't, even if
you
were
horrible, you still wouldn't deserve this. I know that
probably doesn't mean anything, after what's happened, but I wanted
you to know.”

The
woman's words reached me like the sea against a cliff, wearing away
the hardness, carving out something new. There were no flames to
keep tears at bay, only ocean spray.

“No,
that... it means something. It means everything,” I said, fingers
tightening around Sen's. “Thank you. But you should go. If people
see you talking to me, they'll get ideas.”

Realising I was right, the woman left with her best
smile.

There
were fewer people around the tower itself, though some had followed
us from the pane district, and I stopped outside, waiting for Sen
to unlock the door. She remained by my side as if waiting for
something herself. Either that, or she thought we were still
moving.

“Sen,
have you got the key?”

“Ah...”

I
spotted a ring of them hanging from her hip and I grabbed it, not
expecting her to be in any state to answer as I resorted to trying
each one, until the lock finally twisted open. I guided her inside,
leaving her to sit on the bulkiest chair I could find as I rushed
up to Claire's room.

A candle
burnt low on the cabinet by her bed, book folded across her lap.
The ruckus outside and our abrupt intrusion hadn't escaped her, and
as I reached the upper floor, she was doing what she could to sit
up against the pile of pillows that had been supporting
her.

“Rowan?
What's happening?"

I hadn't
considered the state I must be in, sweat and soot smeared in equal
measures across my skin.

“It's
Sen,” I said, stepping forward to offer my arm out and help her sit
up properly, “There was a fire. They burnt down her cabin, Claire.
Someone was after me—they had to be. Why else would anyone ever
want to hurt Sen?”

Claire
had settled down into bed in a long nightshirt, and when she swung
her legs over the side, the fact that I'd dared to speak of fire
made my throat turn dry. Believing that the burns ended at the hems
of her collar, her sleeves, was a kindness to no one but myself,
and I saw, too clearly, how the bones didn't sit right in her
leg.

Claire
didn't look away, didn't pretend I hadn't seen all that had
consumed her. The thought of harm coming to Sen outweighed the rage
that would've become her had she heard that Rylan was at Orinhal's
gate, and she reached for her cane and tilted her head towards her
dresser. I brought the trousers folded over the back of the chair
to her, neither looking at her nor looking away as she began to
dress.

Frustrated, breathy sounds left her lips as she pulled them
on, leaving most of the work to one hand, struggling to stand
without the cane. I held out my arm and she leant against me,
buttoning her trousers without a word, picking up her cane and
taking the stairs down far too quickly.

Sen was
where I'd left her, hunched over in the darkness. She trembled,
face buried in her hands, and Claire took tentative steps towards
her.

“Sen...”
she whispered, placing a hand against her back.

“M-Marshal...” Sen said, rubbing her knuckles against silver
eyes as she looked up. “They burnt my house, Marshal. They took my
home.”

“I know,
Sen,” Claire said with a heartbroken smile. “I won't let them get
away with this.”

Claire
laid her cane across the desk so she could wrap her arms around
Sen's shoulders and draw her close. Sen balled her hands into
fists, digging the heels of her palms against her knees, and Claire
ran her fingers through her hair, gently murmuring much of nothing
as she pressed her face to the top of her head.

There
was no way for me to make this right. I couldn't bring back the
home Sen had made, couldn't recreate the birds she'd put so much
time and care into. All I could do was ensure it never happened
again.

Claire
stayed with Sen until she stopped shaking. Easing herself back, she
said, “Go. Get some rest, Sen. You won't feel like it, but it'll be
for the best. Take my bed. And before you object, consider it an
order.”

But there was no energy left in Sen to argue with. She got to
her feet without a word, shoulders hunched, and took the stairs up
to Claire's room one at a time, feet thudding dully against them.
For a long time, neither Claire nor I said anything. The
floorboards creaked overhead and Sen dragged her feet across the
floor, but soon enough, a soft
thwump
told us she had no intention
of pacing back and forth.

Exhaling
heavily, Claire claimed the chair Sen had been sitting in, not
knowing how she ought to start dealing with any of this.

“I think
I need to leave, Claire,” I said. The words had been pressed
against the back of my teeth and there was no holding them in.
“It's only going to get worse and worse.”

Claire
turned to me, expression settling into something that couldn't
quite grasp at anger.

“I shall put an end to this at once. I shall ensure the
people know that they cannot get away with harming
anyone
within
Orinhal.”

“You
tried that,” I said. “You told the people about me, and they still
did this. Even if most of them listen, there's always going to be
people determined to be rid of me. And the ones that don't act are
only going to resent you for it. I've barely been here for a few
weeks and look at all these problems I've caused.”